Outdoor Connections
Sloppy Joe Recipe
New version of the old fashioned Sloppy Joe. What makes this “new” is the really clean ketchup and Worcestershire sauce we use. Our ketchup is made with agave and real sugar, no high fructose corn syrup or other junk; we don’t have any real problem with HFCS, we just can’t handle the aftertaste with products made with it. And our Worcestershire is super clean, vegan, and it doesn’t have any fish or weird crap in it.
Prep time:
It’s goes pretty quick so if you like to enjoy a refreshing, adult beverage while you cook, make it a short one; on second thought, it takes about an hour and a half start to finish, so you might want to make it a tall one.
Skill level:
You really should know how to cook…something…anything…can you make toast?
This dish is better cooked than raw so you’re gonna need some type of heat source. I suggest setting the wood stove on fire and crank it up, not super crankin because you’ll need to get close enough to occasionally stir the pot of stuff. If you don’t have a wood stove, its OK, you can use a conventional appliance but its not nearly as much fun.
Stuff you’ll need:
A dutch oven (fancy name for a big pot with handles)
A big spoon for stirring and serving
Other stuff (ingredients)
Ground beast, ie, venison, bear, etc, winged beasts work well also, about 2 ½ pounds beast of your choice. If you don’t have any of these items or don’t want to use your own, go visit that buddy that always brags about having a freezer full (we all have one); raid his freezer when he gets up for another round.
1 red bell pepper-stemmed, seeded, and diced, that means get rid of the stem, scrape out the seeds and pitch ’em, then cut up the pepper in small pieces.
I medium onion, peeled and diced (see pepper details) we have our onions prepped and frozen cuz we don’t want to spend the time cutting them up. If you’re like us, just grab a fist full of frozen ones and throw them in the pan.
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, minced ( that means cut into really small pieces) OR, if you want to save time and not have your fingers smell like garlic for the next two days, go to Hannaford or Walmart and buy a 2 pound jar of minced garlic for around 6 bucks. If you go with this option, do it before you start the wood stove.
1 ½ cups of Beast Feast Maine Classic Ketchup. If you can’t find ours anywhere local you can get it from our website or try and find some Red Gold Brand, it doesn’t have any HFCS in it; you can usually get it at Walmart. If that doesn’t work, just use the ketchup you usually use.
A bunch of butter, yes, real butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar, light or dark you ask? Don’t mattah but we use dark
2 teaspoons chili powder, we use more
1 teaspoon dry yellow mustard, wet works too
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, we use more
1 cup water
salt to taste, we use a teaspoon
Black pepper to taste, we use a teaspoon of this also
2 tablespoons tomato paste, we use more
Worcestershire sauce to taste, we just splash some in
Tabasco sauce to taste, we use our own Beast Feast Maine Gourmet hot sauce
Decent rolls (that’s not the brand, just get really good rolls)
Melt some of that butter in the pot and throw in the ground beast, cook it till its almost done. This is where you will incorporate the use of the spoon we mentioned earlier. Don’t discard (throw away) the butter and juices (grease) from cooking the beast, (don’t listen to your doctor, this one meal won’t be the meal that kills you) if you pitch it you’ll be tossing out a lot of flavor.
Add the veggies, cook some more till the veggies are soft, use the spoon, using your hand for this part could be dangerous although we seen people do it.
Add the rest of the stuff to the pot…….remember the spoon?
Simmer for about 15 minutes to let it thicken up a little bit, use this time wisely, either finish you beverage or get another one, this is where we usually get another one.
Here is where your toast making skills come into play, toast the rolls! This is a pretty cheap meal to make, especially if you took my recommendation for obtaining the beast part of the stuff you needed, ie, your buddy’s freezer, so invest in some good quality rolls like Ciabatta or Focaccia rolls.
Butter the rolls AFTER their toasted, no need to complicate things at this point.
Use the spoon to put the Sloppy Joe on the rolls, doing this by hand is usually frowned upon, people always wonder where your hands have been, but hey, its up to you, you know the company your keeping better than us.
We serve them open-faced on a plate with a bunch of shredded cheddar cheese on top but that’s your call.
This recipe makes about 8 servings so realistically you should probably feed about 3 people per batch, so maybe you should double it…….we do!
Enjoy!
Beast Feast Maine Pit Crew